Hi, I'm Sophie, the founder behind rescAIle

The Day-to-Day Invisible Weight

Like so many women, my story with the mental load didn’t begin dramatically. It crept in quietly, day by day and task by task, reminder by reminder, expectation by expectation.

It could be dentist bookings. Birthday gifts. School WhatsApp threads. Meal planning (don't forget the shopping to go with it). Emotional caretaking. Remembering every detail so life feels smooth for everyone else.

There was a point where the logistics, the background thinking, the emotional scaffolding of my family life began to feel heavier than the tasks themselves.

And the world seemed to assume: “You just handle it. That's what women do." Except many of us aren’t handling it, rather, we’re surviving it.

The Moment I Realised Something Had to Change

One evening, I missed a school reminder buried amongst five school emails sent that day. She needed to wear a normal jumper and bring in a charity donation. It was a small oversight but it mattered to my daughter and I felt horrible. Something in me paused.

Why was every mental tab — work, school, meals, appointments, extended family, birthdays, emotions — sitting open in my mind? I wasn’t failing, what I was asking was simply too much to expect of anyone. I wondered how I got here. Last I recall, my husband and I were on board for a 50-50 split.

So I did what I’ve always done when something puzzles me: I began to research.

What the Research Revealed Was Uncomfortable — and Clear

I did a deep dive into the academic research on cognitive labour, emotional labour, gender roles and wellbeing. In the past, I had published in this field as well, and quickly moved onto doing some informal surveys and interviews with other women.

Across every conversation, the pattern was painfully consistent:

• Women described how they were the default project managers of family life.

• They could delegate but the anticipating, monitoring and follow-up were on them.

• The mental load was unshared, unacknowledged and unmeasured.

• The consequences were real: burnout, stress, and poorer health outcomes.

• Tools that were mentioned were not really helping, they were at best reminding, at worst nagging.

The conclusion was obvious to me: We don’t need more to-do lists. We need shared cognitive labour. Social change will come, I am optimistic about it. But it is going to take time, more time than I have to be honest. I therefore wondered whether technology could help. And I concluded it could, as long as it was built with empathy, fairness and real insight.

Why rescAIle Matters

rescAIle was born not from tech ambition, but from human necessity. I need it in my life!

It matters to me because:

• Women deserve support.

• Emotional labour deserves recognition.

• The mental load deserves to be shared, not silently endured.

• Families function better when cognitive labour isn’t gendered.

rescAIle is my way of contributing to that shift. A small, quietly radical act of care. A tool that supports women as they are, and that might be like me overloaded and brilliant and doing their best every day.

Why AI can help

Artificial Intelligence, in particular Large Language Models, are already a big part of many lives. Why should it not bring its best 'second brain' features to help carry the mental load? The features I am developing are using insights from research about what the mental load entails - the anticipating, managing, monitoring and following up. It's often small things. My husband even had the audacity to call them 'boring', but that's probably quite right. While rescAIle can't load the washing machine for you, it can do most of the thinking and planning. Take a football or hockey tournament that your child takes part in. rescAIle doesn't just input the date in the diary, it is learning from you (and research) to input preparation like washing the kit, packing snacks, route planning and finding a warm place to hide out with the younger sibling while you wait for the tournament to finish.

This is just one example, and I am currently focusing on getting the functionality right. This is why building in the open is so important to me. I want to know that what I do is relevant to everyone, and we cover as much as we can to to let rescAIle carry the mental load for women.

Building With Intention, Not Haste

We’re not rushing. rescAIle is being designed slowly, deliberately, ethically.

We’re designing with:

• Warmth

• Non-judgment

• Fairness

• Calm intelligence

• Genuine human insight

We’re prototyping features that genuinely lighten the mental load in small, meaningful ways.

A Community Effort

rescAIle isn’t just my story. It’s a collective story. Every woman who was ever awake far too late remembering three things at once while doing yet another is part of this. Every overloaded mum. Every working woman trying to “balance it all.” Every daughter managing family care. Every person who is tired of silently carrying the invisible load.

Your stories, your feedback and your lived experience will shape this app.

rescAIle isn’t for women.  It’s with women.